Aryan Brotherhood kingpin headed for life of solitary confinement in Texas
A kingpin of Texas organized crime will spend the rest of his life behind bars in a state prison, where authorities say he'll finally lose his voice in the brutal Aryan Brotherhood of Texas.
James Byrd, 45, was already in federal prison. But that did little to stem his role in the Brotherhood, a prison gang that operates out of federal penitentiaries. Following a years-long joint initiative by federal and state agencies, Byrd will live the rest of his days almost entirely shut off from the outside world.
"He will be in a box for 23 hours a day," said Tarrant County criminal prosecutor Allenna Bangs, who worked Byrd's case. "That will be 50 very hard years."
Prosecutors' goal, Bangs said, was to land Byrd in state prison, where unlike federal prison, policy permits solitary confinement on the basis of gang involvement. That means no time to mill about the yard with other inmatesthe setting from which Brotherhood business is conducted.
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